From the Printed Page to the Digital Dictionary: Methodology and Challenges in Compiling and Digitizing the Dictionary of the Four Orations Against the Arians in the Histdict System
From the Printed Page to the Digital Dictionary: Methodology and Challenges in Compiling and Digitizing the Dictionary of the Four Orations Against the Arians in the Histdict System

Summary/Abstract: The Old Bulgarian translation of Athanasius of Alexandria’s Orations Against the Arians has survived in ten Russian copies, dating between the 15ht–18th cc. All of them preserve the colophon of Tudor Doksov, according to which the translation was made by Constantine of Preslav in 906. On the one hand, this article presents a framework for the development of a Dictionary and Index of the Three Orations Against the Arians and the so-called Fourth Oration (actually, Athanasius’ Epistle to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya). Each dictionary entry includes: 1) a headword in its lemma form with normalized etymological Old Bulgarian spelling; 2) grammatical characteristics; 3) defined meaning(s) in the text in Modern Bulgarian and English; 4) the corresponding Ancient Greek parallel(s); 5) all occurring word forms with grammatical characteristics and signatures (indication of their location in the text). On the other hand, the article examines the transformation of this lexicographical reference book from a traditional paper-based format into a dynamic online environment, the digitalization of the Dictionary, the use of a specialized software converter, and the data integration into the Histdict platform. The study analyzes the advantages of the XML format, the role of interdisciplinary collaboration between philologists and IT experts, and the specific challenges involved in the automated recognition of complex linguistic structures.

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